


Healthy and strong (and a little bit dead)

by SunshineSea



Series: You're not out yet [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (just briefly described), A fic where John quits his job but its not through the eyegouge route, Apathy, Eye Trauma, Feeding, Gen, Intellectual auto-cannibalism, The Eye isn't any better, The Web is awful, if that is a thing, post ep 155
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-23 13:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20893046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineSea/pseuds/SunshineSea
Summary: "She hasn’t known him for that long but she can’t recall ever seeing him look so alive, just- fleshy and pink and even getting a little plump, with big, moist, cow-like eyes staring into different parts of the wall. He is starting to look like one of those frustratingly cute cherubs she had to cut out of magazines for Sunday school.And he is so, so quiet."John finds a way to quit his job, but it's a slow thing, and it leaves him empty.Everywhere there is a space, something new will find a home.





	1. Chapter 1

The first warning is when he stops reading statements.

Despite the institute’s reputation they _do _get statement givers from time to time, and even though the “unread files” box in John’s office is usually empty (the fresher ones taste better, he says) it does take a while to notice how they pile up. The assistants have to admit that they might be neglecting their more… Administrative duties. They don’t notice until Rosie calls down and says she has a student at the front desk who delivered a statement six weeks ago and still hasn’t heard back.  
Daisy takes the message, goes into John’s office, and finds him solving a sudoku puzzle with his feet up. It’s bizarre how much a normal scene can shake you when nothing is normal any more; she stands and stares for a little bit and she even sees John take a sip of his tea, which, come to think of it, she hasn’t seen him do in _ages_. She didn’t even know he still consumed things that weren’t trauma.  
He looks up through his glasses (John has glasses, right? Did he always have them? They fit him but- has he used them lately?) and actually looks bashful for a second. He quickly squirrels the sudoku away and folds his hands over his desk (how neat it is now. Where are the papers?) like he’s just a normal boss having a conversation with a normal employee. He does not, however, greet her.

“Uh…” Daisy begins, shaking off the unease, “I got… So, I just talked to Rosie.”  
His lips curl and it does something to his face. Makes it more open. His lips are pink and a little wet. Is that what it looks like when John is smiling?  
“Rosie, yes,” he replies and his voice is dusty with disuse.  
“How is Rosie?”  
“I dunno. Didn’t ask. She says a statement giver came in today, wonderin’ about our follow-up. I was just gonna check if you’ve read it.”  
John’s fresh lips go into an “oh” shape but he doesn’t make the sounds. He stares. He waits.  
“Uh, so… Have you?” she prods.  
He still stares.  
“It was about-“ Daisy looks down at the post-it in her hand, “-a thermostat that apparently changes people’s insides to match the temperature set? She says her boyfriend died using it. Boiled himself. That ring any bells?”  
John frowns, and if Daisy hadn’t been simultaneously so confused and non-threatened she would have demanded to know what’s going on with him. There’s that piece of the Eye in her that desperately wants to know, interrogate, like Detectives should, but she still has that touch of humanity left that just wants to see John be _happy _and _calm _and _normal_ for once. If she confronts it she might shatter it, and despite all mental objections it does feel… Nice, to have him be better.

Instead she watches him pull the now-full “unread files” box towards him and start rifling through them.

This is when she realizes that he hasn’t been reading statements. She’s baffled as she watches him pull sheet after sheet after sheet from the box, glancing over the name and “regarding” before organizing them on his desk, neater than she can remember him ever being. She strains her ears for the soft whirr of tape recorders that are always, _always _damn it, on in John’s office, but she can’t pick anything out. She looks for them. She can’t find them.

When he speaks, she jumps.  
“No, sorry,” he says, voice still dry but eyes twinkling just a little bit.  
“I haven’t gotten around to it. When do you want it?”  
Daisy stares.  
“How about now?”  
John wrinkles his nose, a gesture she is sure she has never seen him make before.  
“No…” he says, trailing off. Face just a little displeased. She holds her breath waiting for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. Instead he just keeps the “no” on his lips and slowly shakes his head until the situation is too weird for her and she just kinda leaves, closing the door behind her with a gentle _click, _not unlike the end of a statement.

* * *

The second warning is when he stops sleeping.

After Daisy shares her experience with Basira they spend a good couple of nights debating if John has been replaced by something. The thing that pretended to be Sasha is, as far as they know, still trapped in the tunnels, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things like it out there. It feels like a good explanation, but… It just sounds wrong.

“Would a monster pretending to be John get his powers as well?” Daisy asks.  
“Do we know that John still has any powers?” Basira shoots back, and they go silent.

“Would a monster pretending to be John be so obvious?”  
“Is it? Is it obvious? Because if you’re right then he stopped reading statements weeks ago and we only just realized.”  
They go silent.

“Why would being replaced by a monster make him stop talking?”

They’ve mulled over that one quite a bit. They found the tape where John exposed not!Sasha years ago (Basira picked it out without thinking, she’s got a touch of the Eye on her that she won’t admit) and did everything he did; listening to his voice, finding old photographs, asking people to describe him, et cetera infinitum, and everything checked out. If not!John wasn’t talking much because it was afraid of being discovered through its voice then they would have caught it, but no. The John from three years ago sounds exactly like the John sitting in his office. Finding a photo of him was hard but it turns out John actually did go to some of the Institute Christmas parties back when he was a researcher, and a lot of the group pictures were taken with ancient polaroid cameras. If this was done out of nostalgia or aesthetic or if it was actually a safety measure in cases like these, they haven’t been able to figure out. Still. John looks like John, and John sounds like John. John doesn’t _act _like John, though, and if it’s not the Not-Them then it’s something unknown.

John’s flat had been sold two months ago. He had not changed his address but asked for his post to be forwarded directly to the archives, according to Rosie.

Their plan is to observe him while he’s alone, although that’s not really their field of expertise. The plan is incredibly technologically advanced, it takes days of preparation over a big table with a layout of the Institute on it and thousands and _thousands _of pounds in surveillance gear, and they have to get camouflage coloured like old books and wooden shelves, and they create a new sign language to communicate silently, and-  
And that’s what it _would _be, in a perfect world. In actuality their plan is to leave the door to his office slightly ajar and find an excuse to go in every time he closes it.  
Obviously Basira is careful; she stands at the hinge-end of the door and just lightly tugs at the handle until it pops open, so that it can be reasonably assumed the door just didn’t shut all the way in the first place. John apparently decides it must be a draft or something because he stops getting up to close it.

So they wait.

They watch him for four hours each on rotation, both pretending to be working (or actually working, sometimes). To begin with, Basira makes a list over his movements. It looks like this:

0600 – In his office, looking at the wall.  
0700 – still in his office, looking at the wall. Smiling now.  
1000 – Still in his office and still looking at the wall. Guard shift.

And then Daisy takes over the list and it look like this:

1000 – went to the bathroom. Followed him. He actually went. Must be the tea.  
1030 – Picked up a magazine. Appeared to read it.  
1042 – Set magazine down. Stared at the wall.  
1100 – Made himself a cup of (normal) tea. Drank it.  
1400 – Staring at the wall. Guard shift.

… And so on. He does not sleep the first night, and he does not sleep the second night, and neither of them are surprised when he does not sleep the third night either. The weirdest part was that he doesn’t actually _work_. As far as either of them knows, being an employee of the Magnus archives means you _have _to work. You get sick if you stay away for too long or neglect your duties. “Feed that which feeds you” and everything. And yet…  
John spends his days and nights just _being in his office._ Sometimes he entertains himself for a couple of minutes with a book or a puzzle, on rare occasions he uses the bathroom or gets a cup of tea (and actually drinks it) and he never as much as looks at the statements. This should make Daisy happy; she wants him to not consume trauma, she really does, and if he can cut his brain-slurping habit then she can free herself from the blood with enough time, but this? Just- just quitting, cold turkey? And she hasn’t known him for that long but she can’t recall ever seeing him look so _alive_, just- fleshy and pink and even getting a little plump, with big, moist, cow-like eyes staring into different parts of the wall. He is starting to look like one of those frustratingly cute cherubs she had to cut out of magazines for Sunday school.  
And he is so, so, _so_ quiet.

* * *

The third warning is when he stops moving.

It’s been a while since the statements stopped, and both Daisy and Basira have actually managed to work through the backlog and get the archive into some sort of shape. It feels like their little world of danger has just been taking a break, now with John gone.  
Of course, he’s not actually gone. Just… Mentally, Daisy supposes. Spiritually. They haven’t been able to get a word out of him for days, and he stopped taking tea breaks. Daisy can’t rightly explain why she isn’t worried. Why all of this feels so _right. _

“Do we have to?” she asks Basira again, just to pad the time out.  
“Yeah,” Basira replies, though she is usually so cold and surefooted and now she seems hesitant. “Yeah, there’s something wrong. We can’t ignore it any more. Look, it’s none of my business if he wants to deal with his problems by sitting still and doing crosswords. He’s not hurting anyone. The thing is, we might _need _him, Daisy. We might need him to be functional, even! And I’m not complaining about getting a break but this is all just- It’s-“  
“Wrong.” Daisy finishes for her, and they both sit still as snow.

They obviously find him in his office, and a little part of Daisy’s heart swells when she sees the look on his face. He is leaned back in his chair with his feet on the desk, staring up into the ceiling, and he looks so very serene. Like all the troubles of the world are waves on a distant beach. Like he’s never known hardship in his life. Like he’s never known _anything _in his life.  
He’s wearing the same thing as yesterday (and the day before and the day before and) she can see a very thin sheet of dust on his shoulders. Has he been like this for so long? Her stomach churns thinking about how they didn’t check on him yesterday (or the day before or the day before) because they were gathering courage. Specifically, courage to confront him. That seems… So distant, now. In this space.

Basira moves slowly and rests her fingers on his neck.  
“Got a pulse,” she says, but she’s growing more hesitant by the second.  
“Strong?”  
“Yeah, healthy and even.”  
They stand.

Daisy can’t rightly explain it, but _something _tells her that he can’t hear them. There’s just this awful pressure of- of _knowing_ in her head, the same way she’s _known _for weeks now that something is happening to him, the same way she’s _felt _that it’s right. This is wrong, but it feels good. He looks so happy. No, peaceful. He looks peaceful.

Basira gives his face a half-hearted slap and he (predictably) doesn’t react. His eyes are still shining but they look blank with wetness. Daisy watches as her partner takes John’s pulse again and starts patting his jacket down, pulling a tape recorder from his breast pocket, and she remembers how she hasn’t been able to find any of those for weeks. They look at each other. Basira puts it on the table and, with the manner of someone trying to move a sleeping snake, she presses play. The muted (click) is jarring.

“Statement of Jonathan Sims, the archivist, regarding his... Unusual hunger, and solution. Statement taken directly from subject on the 20th of September, 2018. Statement begins.”  
(God, he sounds so old. So creaky. So very, very real. It shocks them both and they want to turn it off but there’s no way now, no way back)

“I… Hm. Where to begin. You know, these things are a lot easier when someone can just… Compel the answers out of you. I suppose whoever is hearing this will already be familiar with my, uh, _situation_, but every recording is for the ones to come and all that. If Daisy or Basira is hearing this I assume you’ve found me. Might be in the office, might be in the tunnels, I haven’t decided yet. If Martin is hearing this, well…”  
(He sighs so deeply. He sounds so tired. So sick.)

“I… You were right, Martin. About me being a coward. I’m not going to gouge my eyes out. I don’t even know if I’m human enough to die any more, but that? That sounds like it would kill me. I am just- I’m just too close to it now, Martin. I’m too much of the Beholding to be anything else. And it makes me so, so hungry.  
I think the first time I, well, _fed_, was… God, you know I can’t remember. Weird, isn’t it? When I serve my _master_-“ spat out “- I get all the knowledge in the world and my memory is flawless and the second I go off course? It punishes me. I have no reason to believe any of the fears can harbour any other emotion than just- animal _hunger_, but there you go. I think it gets offended. I think it hurts me out of spite. The longer I go without eat- no. No, I don’t _eat_. I re-traumatize people permanently for sustenance, and because it makes me feel good. Because I… because I want to. There. I want to. Well, not any more.”

“the Eye is keeping a lot from me these days, because it knows I’ve discovered an alternate way out. This way is just for me, though. And it doesn’t want me to go that way, so it- it _clouds _me. It makes me jittery and irritated and I cannot emphasize enough how hungry I am. God, I am… Hungry, all the time these days. But I found a way. I found a source of food that won’t need to hurt anyone else and, in time, will let me escape.”

“I discovered this… I suppose I could call it an _intellectual cannibalism,_ the same day Melanie quit. I was in a bad state. The screams especially, they, uh… Well, suffice to say they kept playing in my head. I kept imagining how she had looked when I opened that door, the fresh jelly of her eyes stained pink with blood running down her face is sludgy bits. She was screaming so much I swear they had to hear her upstairs, but she had, for all intents and purposes, succeeded. She had been brave and- even though she was in pain- she had finished both eyes like scrambled eggs. After the ambulance left I was alone for a while, and I kept thinking about those screams. About her face. I decided to record a statement of my experience just to get it out and you know what I found? It felt- _good. _Very good. Only afterwards when I felt warm and sleepy did I realize that I had just, impossibly, taken a direct statement _from myself._ I’ve delivered my own statements before but never while this hungry, so I noticed the effects acutely. When I tried to consider the consequences of this new information I found my brain slow and uncooperative, and that’s when I knew this was not something the Watcher wanted me to think about. But oh. Oh, did I think.”

“I recorded many statements over the next couple of days, pouring out all the horrible things I could think of, and even though it hurt it also felt filling. Fresh. But every statement was taking something out of me, and when I started misplacing things I knew I was doing something to myself, to my brain. I suppose it would be like drinking your own urine to stay hydrated, just… All the toxins, all the things you don’t want or need, being recycled and reused until it’s distilled into pure, useless poison. Still, I could do them a second time. And a third. I realized I didn’t actually need to record them- and in fact, the tape recorders started becoming uncooperative- but that I could just _think _them. Over and over and over. Every time I relived my own trauma there was a little bit of relief and a lot of pain, but with all its drawbacks, this self-consumption still felt _new _and _fresh _and it was so much better than the stale old tapes that had kept me alive until then.”

“I’m recording this about two weeks after I started, because I am seeing the signs of what is to come. My patron might be punishing me but I can still _think_, even if I can’t _know._ Decreased motor control, decreased appetite, seemingly inconsequential lack of sleep. I don’t miss the dreams, but… Without sleep to take up some time in my day I am left to my own devices in the office, slowly consuming myself from the inside. Do I care? Do I care that I’m going to become a- a husk of my former self? Do I care about being unable to care for myself, to care for others? I want to say yes, but it feels like the part of my personality that actually _cared _has been consumed already, and I am left with a burning desire to never be hungry again. I won’t be. I am recording this so my assistants will know in no uncertain terms that I _chose _this. Might be the only choice I’ve been aware of making in years. I know what I’m doing. I know the consequences. If my theories are correct then the Eye will let me go once I am no longer the Archivist, and I will no longer be the Archivist when I cannot do my job. It won’t get any food from me if I turn into a zombie, and so I will be… Useless.”

“It’s strange how little I care about the future, after I’ve absorbed whatever is left of me. Every little memory, every trauma, every secret and story I know. Will I go to a nursing home? Or just… Just pass away quietly when there’s nothing left? I wonder who will take my job. I think Martin is technically the best candidate, but whatever his plan is with Lukas probably doesn’t involve a career shift. I just hope whoever they are, they will one day discover this tape. Know… Know that there is a way out, however slow it might be.”

“Who knows? Maybe after I’m not enough of a person any more to have a job, they will send me off to some facility for braindead people. Maybe I will recover. If my senses still work I could, theoretically, experience new things, maybe refill those nooks and crannies of my brain that I’ve drained completely dry. If that happens, will I be the first ever archivist to quit and not die? I fully expect I will not be making any kind of recovery, though… In the blissful silence of not Knowing anything, just speculating, I can afford myself some hope. I’ll probably eat that hope later but I can have I now.”

“I suppose… I suppose statement ends. I… Whoever hears this for the first time, I am… Sorry, to leave you like this. I’m sorry that you had to find me. I hope the shock won’t be too great, but- but if it is, you could try telling me about it.” He laughs. Cracked and dry.

The recorder clicks and the whirring stops. John is so very quiet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, hear me out: i was very very sad when i wrote the last chapter and today I am not sad so I am going to fix what I did.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Daisy has known herself to be jagged most of her life. She is short and broad and strong in body, yes, but on the inside she looks like Helen’s hands, just all points and angels. There is nothing _motherly _about Daisy. She isn’t a caretaker. And yet…

“Do we…?” Basira asks, voice low, hands shaking a little. Daisy doesn’t need the eye to know why; growing into an old and useless woman with her mind scoured by dementia and her body riddled with enough cancers to keep her anchored is literally Basira’s worst nightmare, and Daisy suspects John’s new oblivious braindeath is triggering something in her. Maybe it had been the talk of nursing homes. Basira had once drunkenly made Daisy promise that if she ever got alzheimers then Daisy would shoot her in the head and get it over it, before she devolved into one of those pudding-sucking, doll-cradling, nightgown-forever-wearing little ladies that her nightmares are made of. Daisy had agreed.  
“No, we don’t,” she says, firmly.

Click.

Click.

She’s stopping and starting the tape recorder, though she can’t rightly explain why. Statement beings. Statement ends. Click. Click. And Daisy wasn’t- isn’t some kind of _matron_, she’s not going to start showering John and feeding him and helping him to the bathroom, but neither can she kill him like Basira wants. Usually the blood would have started frothing and roiling at the suggestion that she might finally, _finally _be in the right about this, that her instincts weren’t some plague to be stomped down but rather a tool to be used- she’d relish the thought in any other circumstance, and she’d do just about anything for Basira to be happy. But.  
For all his warmth, John is cold prey right now. He cannot be hunted. She supposes he is already caught by something else. This other thing didn’t even hunt him, he just… Walked into its open arms.

Click.

“Help me move him.” Daisy has made a decision.  
“What? Where?”  
“Well, first we gotta see if he can stand. Then we gotta see if he walks. Then we’re gettin’ him to my car.”  
“I…” and Basira looks at her for a long time. Daisy knows she’s considering just bashing John’s head in with something and having it over with because, as far as Basira is concerned, John has been dead for a while now. There’s something very wrong about not letting the dead rest. There’s something very, very wrong about leading the dead out to your car. She doesn’t say any of this, though.  
  
“And we’re _not_ going to tell Martin?”  
“Absolutely not. We’re not going to tell Martin because a) he never tells _us_ anything, and b) he’s literally being consumed by a god whose only weakness is having human relationships. We show him how John is and we’re gonna lose two people today.”  
“So you don’t think he already knows?”  
“Look, Basira- I dunno. If Martin knows then he didn’t stop it, so fuck him. Help me get the boss up.”

Daisy feels like this should be some kind of adrenaline-pumping, high-stakes mission. They are smuggling their (basically) dead boss out of the archives. That’s dangerous, right? And still… And still.

They both take slow, calculated, satisfying breaths when they position themselves at either side of John. Daisy has the vague feeling of her body catching up to something; like falling in step with someone next to you. Like putting a hand on a lover’s chest and feeling their heart beat evenly, and realizing it’s following the exact same rhythm as yours. Every time John takes a breath it’s deep and makes his whole stomach rise along with his chest, which, speaking of… Daisy puts a hand on his stomach and keeps the other on his shoulder to keep him in position, as Basira pushes his legs down from the desk. With every breath she can feel the button on his blazer strain just a little. Basira positions his knees to point up and his feet to touch the ground, and then she promptly turns around and retches.

“What?”  
“He’s just…” The skin around Basira’s eyes seems to have sucked itself in with the effort of not throwing up. “He’s- he’s warm. Ugh. It’s setting me off.”  
Daisy wonders which of the fears might feed off a newly-discovered phobia for corpses that don’t seem to be dead, but she doesn’t ask. She just nods.  
“All right, all right. You don’t have to touch him. I’ll get it. Go find his coat.”

Basira leaves and Daisy swivels John’s chair around to get her arms under his armpits. With a practiced, fluid, lift-with-your-back motion she hauls him up on his feet, and waits. He sways, but he does actually seem to be standing somewhat on his own. She has to assume that’s a good sign.  
“All right, John,” she tells him, knowing he won’t hear her, “We’re gonna walk now, you and I. Foot in front of the other,” and she grabs him by both hands.

She remembers a distant scene from her childhood, when her mother’s sister visited and brought Daisy’s little niece with her. The toddler had been a little over one year old and just started walking with assistance. While the adults were talking, Daisy had to bend down at a stressful angle and hold the baby by both hands, standing behind it, and keep it balanced as it took unsure step by unsure step, until she got tired and let it fall. It cried. It cried every single time she tried to let go of it and her aunt told her that “once you get her started she doesn’t wanna stop!” as if that had been some cute little quirk instead of a major annoyance. Walking John slowly out of his own office is a lot like that memory.  
Daisy hooks her right ankle behind John’s left foot and pushes it forward, setting it unsteadily down in a step. Then she does the same with the right foot. All the while she’s watching his face, which she has tilted down, and she is acutely aware that even though his eyes are _open _they don’t seem to be _seeing. _She has aligned their pupils as directly as possible and still, there’s- it’s like he’s missing the _contact _part of eye contact. Daisy has felt more watched by paintings than she does by John in that moment.  
She watches his face intently and keeps them both balanced as they take step by torturous step, and with every one he gets a little bit easier to control. When they are through the open door he is actually walking on his own, though she still has to hold his hands to keep him on course.  
It seems to her that it isn’t actually _John _walking, but more like a…. A memory of John. Like his body knows how to do it, even if he doesn’t.

“Come on now, boss,” she mumbles, steps as steady as the heartbeat she can feel in his hands.  
“Come on. Come on. Just a little way more. Come on.”

Daisy has to ask herself why she’s even doing this, honestly. Walking John is just as annoying as walking her baby niece, and, even though she’s pained to admit it, she gets Basira’s fear completely. She supposes it has something to do with how he saved her; Basira wasn’t the one down in that coffin with her. Basira didn’t hear John’s cracked laughter as he told her the Buried were also known as “too-close-I-cannot-breathe”. Basira doesn’t have a very real, emotional stake in John’s recovery, because- god damn it, if John’s recovery ends with him being fucking _braindead_, how can Daisy ever hope to recover? Are they all just slaves to whatever entity decided to snack on them forever? She’s being as patient and slow and _motherly _as she can be, because the alternative is just accepting that nothing can ever be good again and they should all just indulge themselves until they’re killed by something bigger, and despite the Hunt’s waning influence on her, Daisy is still not inclined to go peacefully. She won’t waste away. She _won’t._ John is going to be okay eventually and when he is then he will no longer be tied to the Eye, and when he’s free that means they can all become free.  
She wants to just throw him over her shoulder, but, more than that, she wants to force him into being okay again. She wants the John who cared enough about others and little enough about himself to take one of his ribs out and enter an endless coffin.

When she’s walked him into the hallway he’s steady enough to only be held by one hand, and Basira has already found all their coats. John’s limbs are soft and smooth to manoeuvre, but when Daisy wriggles his arm into his jacket sleeve, she can hear Basira retching again behind her. She turns to see her partner throwing up in an umbrella stand.

“I went upstairs,” Basira says. “Did you know it’s 2pm? I couldn’t see Rosie but there were people there. If we’re gonna get him to the parking lot we need to act normal.”  
“Got it. Thanks.”  
“Do we need anything else? I couldn’t find his phone.”  
“I got it,” Daisy answers and taps John’s pocket. The phone was dead but she has a charger in her car, though… Maybe turning their phones off isn’t a bad idea. Wouldn’t want to be tracked.  
She pats John down to make sure he has everything. Phone, check. Wallet, check. Weird web-engraved lighter? Check. In a fit of inspiration she runs back to his office and grabs his cigarettes, just in case he wants them when he’s recovered.

They bundle up and Basira actually puts an arm around John’s shoulders to guide him. Good. Face your fears and all that.

The light of the main lobby is shocking compared to the dark, humid silence down in the archives. It’s an unusually cold autumn day so Daisy hopes no one will question why they all have their scarves over their mouths and beanies pulled down to their eyes as they make their way through, three pairs of unusually steady, slow, human feet hitting the stone floors, saying click, click, click. Daisy tightens her grip on the tape recorder in her pocket.

No one stops them. No one asks questions. The archival staff are relatively independent from the rest of the institute so most of the others don’t know them by face. They pass by the reception (where’s Rosie? Taking a late lunch?), they pass the big owl inlaid on the stone floor, Daisy pushes open the heavy front door, and then they’re staring out over the Thames, glittering with autumn sun. They don’t speak on their way to Daisy’s car.

Daisy straps John into his seatbelt and arranges his limbs into what she hopes is a casual configuration, with his head resting lightly on his shoulder and his eyes staring blankly out the window. As soon as she closes the door she can see a patch of condensation form from his breath. After Basira is in and Daisy is in and the car is started, the condensation is starting to drip. He must really be warm, huh? Or… Or wet, she supposes. Maybe he’s all wet inside now because his brain is pulp.

“Ok, what’s the plan?”  
“We’re going to my place to get some clothes, food and whiskey. Then we’re going to a gas station to fill up and get a shitty panini. Then we’re going to the bookshop.”  
“You mean Marguerite’s? From the Denner case?”  
“Yeah, Marguerite’s. After that shitshow with her son dying she said I could have his bedroom, if I ever needed a place to hold up. It’s kinda like a safehouse.”  
“Just a bedroom above a bookshop?”  
“Not above the shop, _in _the shop. It’s safe; I’ll show you.”

She starts the car and immediately turns off the radio. Basira takes a deep breath.  
“Right. Clothes, food, whiskey, gas and Marguerite. Clothes, food, whiskey…”

* * *

Marguerite Denner is a tall, wide, strong woman. She runs the Tiny Pearls Bookshop down the embankment. Her size always took Daisy by surprise, because they had first met on a sanctioned case years ago where her son was taken by a _thing _(Daisy now recognizes the work of the Buried) and Marguerite had spent all that time hunched over in a chair. When she stands up to greet them she is downright impressive… And a little scary. That’s probably why both Daisy and Basira find her kind of attractive.

Marguerite’s eyes twinkle happily when they ask to be let into the spare bedroom. Marguerite does not ask questions. She grasps the bookshelf behind the counter with two huge hands and slowly swings it open from the right side, showing a clearly homemade hole in the wall, too narrow for herself.

“Excuse the mess, ladies. Didn’t know I was to be having guests!” Marguerite says with a voice exactly as big and strong as it should be. She’s American, but there’s a melody of London in her accent from years of customer service.  
“There also ain’t beds for three. Want me to drag down a sleeping bag?”

Daisy and Basira look at each other, both of them surprised for a second, and Daisy realizes she hadn’t actually counted John as a person. In her mind they were two people with luggage.

“He doesn’t need anything. Thanks, Ms Denner.”  
“Ah! All good, then. Knock if you need to get out!”

* * *

“This place is…”  
“Cosy?”  
“Tiny. Did the Denner kid have a sibling?”

Daisy looks up from the chair she has placed John in, and sees Basira examining the bunk bed.

“No. Marguerite said he liked sleeping close to the roof, so she got the bunk bed for him when he was small. Weird kid. I think the Buried probably had him since he was little. Explains the size of this place.”

The secret “spare bedroom”, previously “Marcus Denner’s bedroom”, is absolutely miniscule. According to Marguerite her son had seen the space on the layout when they first bought the business and begged her to let him sleep there. It must have been some kind of oversized pantry back in the day, and then gotten lost among renovations and changing owners, until it had been walled in from all sides and forgotten. Marguerite (bless her) didn’t have the legal permissions to put a door in, and the space couldn’t legally be a bedroom anyway due to the lack of window, so she had just knocked a hole in the wall and put a bookshelf over it. Every morning she would swing the bookshelf open and wake her son up. Every night she would close him in. When she and Daisy first met, Marguerite had told this story with a big smile and big tears rolling down her face. He always liked to feel shut in, she had said. He told me it felt so safe.

And it _does _feel safe, size be damned. The walls are sturdy and the only furniture is the bunk bed and a chair, with a little spot of empty floor where Basira unloads their stuff. The only real sign of disuse is two, tiny holes in the ceiling above the upper bunk where termites or something like it have burrowed. Daisy is fussing over how John’s limbs should be arranged.  
Basira stares but doesn’t ask.  
Daisy knows how John is supposed to look when he sits. She studied his mannerisms for ages, when the Hunter was still burning bright within her. Both fists clenched in his lap (nervous, tight, scared), head tilted down (neck pains from reading), shoulders up (tense), back slumped (pains again, bad posture, bad fighter), and she pushes and pulls and moves him until he comes together like a painting; Basira even makes a noise when Daisy steps back and observes him, because this is _exactly _how he should look. This is how John carries himself. She would feel proud if she hadn’t been remembering all these details back in the day due to a desire to kill him.

Then they sit on the bed together and face each other instead of facing John. They bring out the whiskey and the cheap little plastic shot glasses they got at Poundland, and Basira spreads a napkin on the bare sheets for her sandwich. They toast to nothing and pound the first drink. They are now, officially and mentally, off the clock.

“I’m sorry I lost my nerve in the archives.”

“Don’t worry about it. This whole situation is bad.”

“When did you get so forgiving? I’m trained specifically _not _to turn around and throw up at the sight of a corpse. I didn’t act right.”

“I said don’t worry about it. And he’s not a corpse.”

“Yeah, he is. He might be a temporary corpse; I’ll give you that- god knows I’ve seen weirder things- but right now? Jonathan Sims is a dead man and I got queasy when you needed my help moving him. Rookie move. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. You know, I think I kind of wanted to move him alone, anyway.”

“Why?” and Basira looks suspicious.

“Because… I guess I kind of feel responsible. Not because this is my fault or anything, but you know. He had my back once. I was a real mess down in that coffin and he just kept talking to me, and I remember thinking, you know, if we’re both trapped down here, then at least I’ll have company. Does that make sense? I wouldn’t choose John to spend the rest of eternity with or anything but just having _anyone _other than myself was a huge improvement.”

They do another silent toast, another shot. Daisy is pretty neutral to the taste of whisky but the warmth is welcome.

“So, what, you owe him one?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t help myself down there but he was all… You know, patient and whatever.”

“Annoyingly all-knowing?”

“Yep. I couldn’t see him because of all the dirt so when I felt him grab me I thought he was something else for a second, but I figured that, if there were nightmare creatures down there to haunt me, then they wouldn’t be so- so _warm._ And John was warm. So I just trusted him when he started pulling me through dirt that wouldn’t move right and then we were out. I figure the least I can do is try to pull him out in return.”  
_And also if he doesn’t get better then that means none of us can ever get better, so I really need him to get better._

Basira leans back against the wall and looks down at her now-empty napkin, face set in those familiar, determined folds.

“So, what do you wanna do about him? Try to feed him a statement?”

There’s no heating in the tiny room so Daisy has kept her coat on, and she suddenly feels the weight of John’s last statement in her pocket. _You could try telling me about it_.

“I mean… Yeah. Probably. Do you have any ideas?”  
“Not really, but if this whole stunt is to try to get away from the Eye, then isn’t it a bit contradictory to feed him a statement? Isn’t that what he was trying to avoid?”  
“Well- yes, I guess.”

Silence for a while.

“What did he say in his tape? About his senses?”  
“He said that if his senses still worked then he could have new experiences, and that it might refill his brain one day.”  
“Well. Wanna try giving him some experiences?”  
“What are you thinking? Rollercoaster? Disney Land?” and they both surprise themselves with a laugh. A real one, even it is small, and it deserves another shot.

“We could take him hiking in the Himalayas or something.”  
“Yeah, just strap him to both of us and go up a mountain. That’s gonna look good.”  
“Scuba diving?”  
“Oh, absolutely. And then we’ll go paragliding.”

They mull the day away like this. Too many shots on an empty stomach gets to them both and they take a collective nap in the lower bunk somewhere around dinnertime, because neither of them wants to climb to the top. This whole thing has been strange, yes, and scary, but something about John’s serene face and Basira’s warm arms makes Daisy relax, and she drifts in and out of sleep while watching him. The next time she stands up to do anything it’s night-time, and she has to knock to use Marguerite’s bathroom.

She comes back to find Basira snoring into the wall, the empty bottle under the bed. Daisy feels uncharacteristically cheerful about the fact that they emptied it. She sits on the floor next to John’s chair and takes a swig of water, but her tongue and lips feel numb, so she supposes she’s still drunk. She pats him on the knee.  
“We’ll get you out of this, boss,” she tells him, as confident as she can manage. She never called him boss while he was alive. Maybe he will regard it as a _new experience _and come back to comment on it.  
She decides on a drunken impulse to look through his wallet. No pictures of family in there (no surprise), but there’s a couple of pounds and a debit card. She notices that he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Then she finds his cigarettes with the intention of taking one and instead puts it in his mouth. The dry filter sticks to his lips. She lights it for him with the spiderweb lighter. He takes a drag.

He.

Daisy stares.

He took a drag. He- No, no she’s drunk- She’s drunk but she’s no hallucinating, is she?

No, no, of course. She shakes the hope out of her head. He’s breathing. He’s just inhaling because he needs to breathe, and that’s why it looked like he was taking a drag. Still, she watches him intently as the smoke seeps out of his nostrils, and then goes back in. He breathes- slowly, evenly- through his nose for a couple of cycles, and then he inhales through his mouth again.

He _is _taking a drag. He’s- He’s smoking. John is smoking.

Holy shit.

There’s been some kind of spell over Daisy ever since she got that first call from Rosie about the unread statements. Some kind of pressure in her head, not wholly uncomfortable, that kept everything neatly down and in order. Something very peaceful and comfortable and _warm_ that has been holding her tight, tight, shrouding everything in a doomed sense of normalcy and inevitability. She realizes this as the same time she realizes she didn’t actually bring John here to make him get better, but just for the sake of trying to, and failing. She brought him here to confirm what she already knew, which was that he was dead and gone and would be happier six feet under.

Now that spell is lifting in a drunken haze and she watches John smoke as slowly and peacefully as he has been breathing. He reminds her of an old man with his pipe. She stares.

Waking Basira is surprisingly hard due to the liquor, but she rolls over sloppily at the mention of John and blinks hard to centre herself.

“John… John’s what?”  
“He’s smoking, Basira. Having a cigarette.”  
“What, on his own?”  
“No, I put it there and lit it and he inhaled.”  
“Sure he’s not just breathing?”  
“I am _sure _he’s not just breathing.”

Basira makes a motion to sit up but then she falters, and Daisy has to help her roll to the right side so she can see John too.

“This is weird.”  
“Yeah, it is, but it’s good! Right?”  
“I mean… I don’t… I don’t think that, just, generally, I don’t think you’re supposed to make- make vegetables smoke.”  
“Basira, you fucking lightweight.”  
“Am not! I had half a bottle, I’m supposed to be drunk.”  
“Basira, I’m serious.”  
“I am too. Wait, is John smoking?”

Alice “Daisy” Tonner has been more patient in the last 24 hours than she has been all her life, and she has to summon all of it now. Drinking in the back of a bookshop with a breathing corpse she’s trying to resurrect was a really bad idea, and- she coughs, because the smoke is filling the room, and she thinks about how lighting a cigarette in a cramped space without windows was also a bad idea.

Basira does manage to sit up now, and even though she has the look of a person whose world is tiling, she seems more awake.

“Why did you do it?”  
“What?”  
“Why did you give him a smoke?”  
“I- I dunno, honestly. I’m not sober either.”  
“Yeah I know, but- fuck, give me some water. My eyes are burning.”

Daisy does. Basira drinks.

“Think, Daisy. Why did you give John a cigarette.”  
“I… I was looking through his wallet, trying to find something. Something important to him, I guess. And I remembered that stupid lighter he’s always using, so I figured if we’re trying to make John _John _again, then-“

_Oh. _Basira understands exactly one second before Daisy does.

The smoke falls out of John’s mouth and Daisy scrambles to get it, but it has already hit his collarbone by the time she crawls over there. The _shh _of ember to skin is an uncomfortable noise, but she starts noticing things when she hears it. Grabbing the stump by the filter she can see an angry, red spot on John’s skin, dusted grey around the edges with un-tapped ash, and she swears, she _swears _she hears his breath hitch, just a little bit. There’s no peace in that sound. There’s no tranquillity in being burned. And the burn- oh fuck, oh thank god, the burn doesn’t _heal. _It’s not healing!

Basira tries to get to her feet but decides to come over on her knees instead, and they both stare at John’s face, and they stare at John’s _eyes_.  
Still round. Still wet. Still half-lidded and empty. But the pupils are… _Twitching_, just a tiny bit, so subtle that Daisy has to spend almost a full minute observing before she can confirm it’s happening. She takes the stupidly amazing lighter and forces it firmly into his hand, and she notices how his joints aren’t as malleable as they were this morning.

“The Web,” she breathes, though they both know it. She just has to confirm it.  
“Yep.”  
“The… Fuck _me._”  
“You have to admit, right now John makes a pretty excellent puppet.”  
“Oh, _fuck off._”

The air quality has gone way, way down by this point, and combined with the liquor it’s extra hard to think clearly. Or is it the air and the drink, or is it an influence? Just another fucking entity using them for its gain? The more she thinks about it the less she recognizes herself from these past few weeks, just walking on eggshells outside John’s office while fully aware that he wasn’t okay, letting him ruin himself, silently accepting him slipping away into nothing, and then just- just hoisting him up and putting him in her car, making _sure _to grab the lighter- oh, she’s an idiot. She feels like such an idiot.

In the end, Daisy is the one to go knock on the back of the bookcase. She’s surprised that Marguerite is still up, but looking at her wristwatch she sees it’s only 8pm. She just closed up shop.

“Hello again, detecti-“  
Marguerite wrinkles her nose.  
“You’re not going to tell me you’ve been _smoking _in my guest bedroom, are you, detective?”  
“I’m so sorry Ms Denner,” Daisy whispers hoarsely, as earnest as she can be. “We- we fell asleep, and our friend decided to- we’re all a bit drunk, you see, and-“

Marguerite puts her hand up. Now that Daisy looks closer she can tell she’s a bit more amused than angry.

“Ah, fine. Can’t blame the kids for having a good time. Suppose you need to air the room out, then?”  
“Yes. And… And the bathroom.”  
“Me too!” Basira calls from inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I can't say for sure for sure that I'll never continue this story but the idea that I set out with is wrapped up now. consider this an end (for now)

Click. Click.

Clickclickclick.

Daisy has stopped messing with the tape recorder and picked up John’s lighter instead. Something-something idle hands. She likes how heavy the lid of the zippo feels, and how it closes with a satisfying _click_ every time she flips it. In her mind she imagines that the lighter is the Web and every time she closes the lid she hurts it a little bit.

Click.

She now remembers how baffled she had been that John didn’t realize what it was. It was delivered by Breekon & Hope. The thing even has a spiderweb engraved on it! But John kept using it, and when she asked him why he just mumbled something about not really thinking about it, and then the conversation mysteriously shifted. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, click click click. They’ve all been stupid.   
But that’s the thing about being manipulated, isn’t it? You’re not suppose to realize that it’s happening. She was probably being manipulated _right now_. Maybe her handling the lighter gives Anabelle Cane insight into Daisy’s mind or something.

Click.

She tries to imagine the web that’s been spun around them. What lead to what. The Web obviously had insight into the institute, or at least into John himself, because it knew what he was doing. It knew he was killing himself. Then it decided to control _her_ somehow, so Daisy would start monitoring John without interfering, and.. No, that didn’t sound right. She and Basira would have noticed him anyway, wouldn’t they? He stopped doing his job and talking and _moving _for god’s sake, they would have noticed.

Click.

No, what’s more likely is that the Web’s influence actually kept them away from John. Yeah, that sounds right. It pulled the strings so she and Basira got busy with other things while he wasted away in his office, and even when they started getting suspicious, they still didn’t act. Daisy tries to remember how she had felt at the time. Was she worried at all? And the thing is, shamed as she is to admit it, she doesn’t think she worried even once. No, she was… She was kind of happy for him, actually. It wasn’t until yesterday that she and Basira actually felt like going in there and doing anything about it.   
She looks over at John in the dim light of their camping lantern (the illegal bedroom has no lights) and wonders if he is actually sleeping, now. At Basira’s insistence she finally closed his eyes and arranged him into a leaning position, and it’s not that much different, but it does make it harder for her to tell if he is changing at all. Breath still steady. Pulse still strong. She honestly wants to give him another cigarette just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating the whole thing earlier, but Marguerite was pretty clear on her opinions of it, so. Yeah.

“I’m back.”

Basira enters smelling like shampoo, hair still a bit damp. She looks a couple of years younger.

“Good to be clean?”  
“Hell yes. Marguerite has a huge shower. All her soap was lavender scented, though.”  
Daisy chuckles.  
“Was the water warm?”  
“Yeah. Let me guess, you take cold showers?”  
“Mhm.”  
“There’s something wrong with you, Daisy.”

Basira sits down on the bed to change her socks, and Daisy looks out into nothing next to her. She has a distinct feeling that they’re just _waiting _for something. Discovering the Web connection kind of sapped her to be honest, and it no longer feels like she has to figure out how to help her friend, it feels more like she has to wait for the producer of this awful TV show to figure out where the story goes next.

“Look, I can’t just keep this in any longer. We need to talk about the elephant in the room,” Basira says, voice deadly serious. Daisy swallows. Is this where they admit they’ve been played all along? Is this where they admit they are still being played? Are they going to discuss the fact that once you’ve seen something that isn’t natural you get pulled into a horrifying world where everything wants to use you, eat you, or both, and every glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel is actually just an “exit” sign that points you towards an equally horrible entity, who wants to use and eat you as much as the last one?   
Daisy takes a deep, deep breath.

“Is Marguerite hot, or what?”

… And lets it out in a relieved laugh. Basira looks surprised.

“What?”  
“I thought you were going to be a bummer, Basira. Yes, of course Marguerite is hot.”  
“But why, though? She’s just a bookshop clerk in her fifties.”  
“Yeah, a bookshop clerks who looks like she could throw you over her shoulder and carry you into Valhalla.”  
“I mean-“  
“And crush you with her thighs.”  
“Ok. That’s a good point.”  
“… And she looks like she could probably kill you, but she has that kinda cheery vibe, too?”  
Basira nods like they are solving the mysteries of the universe.  
“Big MILF energy.” She states, and that’s that on that.

When the silence resumes it’s an easy thing. They’re still waiting for something, but the air is a little lighter. It stays that way for a couple of minutes until Basira opens her mouth again, voice still serious.

“Daisy, why did we come here?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean… Why, exactly, did you want to take John here.”  
The question feels loaded in a way Daisy isn’t comfortable with, so she tries to skirt around it and pull them back into that easy, joking silence.  
“Because Marguerite is hot?”  
And Basira bites for a second, back to smiling, but then she shakes her head like she’s trying to get rid of something, and Daisy feels heavy again.  
“No, no, I mean… Seriously, Daisy. Try to think. Why, when we realized what had happened to John, did you decide we needed to get him out of the archives and come here?”

Quiet. Basira stares but Daisy honestly doesn’t know how to answer, and when she tries to put herself in her own shoes from yesterday she finds the whole event kind of disturbing, to be honest.

“Why-“  
“I dunno, Basira. I dunno. And when I don’t know why I do something, I’m gonna have to assume something else wants me to do it.”

Quiet again. Daisy picks the lighter up from the bedsheet and flicks it, like the motion is going to jog her memory.

“… Well, it’s the Web, then. It wanted John to be out of the archives. I can understand that; he was trying to get away from the Eye and that place is a temple to it, so it had us remove him.”

Click. Click.

“… But why _here_.”

Daisy is filled with cold, seeping dread. Half-heartedly she mumbles “because Marguerite is hot?” and the second she says it, she knows there’s truth there. Truth it doesn’t want them to see.

They look at each other with the same expression. Basira immediately starts packing while Daisy gets John dressed who, despite the cold of the room, is still so warm it feels like he’s beaming. It takes less than a minute for them to be up and ready and standing at the bookcase-back with John between them, and with a sinking, icy realization, they both stare at it. _Knock if you need to get out!_  
Stupid. _Stupid_.

“Can we push it open?” Basira asks, the panic in her voice not reflected on her face.  
“I think we have to try.” Stupid. Stupid, click click click- No, she has to put the lighter away now, she needs both hands. Basira shoulders John while Daisy puts her weight on the right side of the bookcase and tries to push it as slowly as possible, her breath hitching with every noise she makes, all the while repeating that mantra in her head; _stupid, stupid, stupid. _It’s too heavy. Basira props John against the wall where he stands swaying and tries to help, but the hole is just too small to get any kind of even pressure on it. There’s not enough room for four hands and two bodies pushing. God damn it, _stupid, _they need Marguerite-

And just as she thinks that there is a knock on the other side of the bookshelf. Both women go completely still. Daisy has her head against the wood, and from the other side she hears a big, loud, comforting voice.

“Girls? The shop’s quiet now. Do you want to come out for lunch?”

They stand frozen in place. Yes, they want to get out, but on the other side of this wood there is an agent of the Web, and even though they don’t know what she’s planning, it can’t be- how did they not notice? How did neither of them see this hole in the wall, leading to a tiny, isolated room, and think “ah yes, that’s a trap”?

Weirdly enough, it’s John who breaks the silence. He doesn’t speak, though. He falls. John is not a tall man so it’s not as bad as it could have been but the crash is still loud, and before Daisy knows what to do she feels the wood under her palms give away, and before her stands Marguerite Denner in all her big glory. She looks worried.

“Now, what is going on in there?”

* * *

Marguerite’s little kitchen table feels to small for the four of them, but no one moves. There’s an egg sandwich and a cup of tea in front of Daisy and Basira. There’s nothing in front of John.  
Marguerite is having a second breakfast, it seems, with all the beans and bacon and toast and eggs that she could fit on a platter. She blows on a cup of coffee.

“When did you realize?” she asks, smiling. They look at each other.  
“Just now,” Daisy admits. Marguerite nods, like this is to be expected.  
“And what did it, hm? You didn’t like my son’s bedroom?”  
_Your son’s old bedroom, _Daisy wants to say. She doesn’t. Basira speaks instead.

“We were talking about you. Just,” talking about how strong her thighs looked? “talking about how we got here. And we couldn’t remember why we came, exactly.”  
Marguerite nods again, but the comment about her son’s room sticks in Daisy’s mind.

“I think we need to be honest with each other,” she says as naturally as she can, with not a hint of fear in her voice, but it makes Marguerite smile.  
“Do we? You look like smart girls. What makes you think my kind are inclined to honesty?”

Something about it tickles in the back of Daisy’s mind. It feels like she’s being led astray again, like there was something she wanted to ask, something important. Is Marguerite changing the subject? What was the previous subject? And Basira either has a sixth sense or is feeling the same thing because she leans forward hungrily and looks their host straight in the eye, saying what Daisy was trying to say.

“What happened to your son, Ms Denner?”

Marguerite’s face falls. Daisy does not feel sorry for her.

“Marcus was… Unfortunate. You know, don’t you, Daisy? You were the only one they sent to investigate when I reported him missing. I knew that would happen, of course. I included just enough weird details to make the police want to send sectioned officers, but not enough to send a lot. So I got you! And I’m happy I did, I tell you what. You were so _hungry _to find the culprit that you didn’t even look around too much, just chased after my leads like a dog for a car. Tell me, did you know then? That you were marked by the Hunt?”

Daisy is about to answer but Basira cuts her off.

“Don’t change the subject. What did you do to him? Where is Marcus?”

Marguerite looks annoyed, but Daisy is looking at Basira. The questions. That curious, hard look in her eyes. She wonders just how much of the Beholding has gotten into her partner, and how useful it is against the Web.

“Marcus is sleeping, dear. In his room. For all the Web knows it shares very little, but I remember she explained it to me back then. Exactly what she said, well… It’s not too important right now. The point is that Marcus was to stay in his room and watch what was happening there, and, in return, my master would protect him from the Buried, which was trying _very _hard to get into him. Say what you will about the Web, but she kept her end of the deal. Now, I am keeping mine.”

“The termites,” Daisy whispers. Her lungs feel icy cold. “The termite holes above the bed. Two of them. Just… Two.” And Marguerite practically beams at her with pride.

“Well done! Yes, that is my Marcus. He always liked the top bunk best, you know. He said he felt safe squashed between the mattress and the ceiling. It’s not the best place for him to be since he can’t see the bottom bunk from there, but, well… Kids. You know? Some things you just can’t argue with them about.”

Daisy feels sick in a way that she hasn’t for a long time, but with that sickness comes a familiar anger. Just how far back does this scheme go? _Years_? Had she been singled out years ago when she just happened to show up here, on a case that lead nowhere? Or had that part been a nice coincidence that the Spider was now using to get John into its web- John! John was just sitting there, limp, absolutely useless to them, and really, wasn’t it _his _fault that they had even come here, walked straight into-

“She expects you to kill me,” Marguerite says. She has the intonation of someone reciting a story. Something distant. Something peaceful.  
“And now I think I expect that, too. I honestly didn’t think so when I took you in, but I guess we can never see as far as our masters, hm?”

Basira looks at her partner, and Daisy looks back. The Blood is singing to her, now. Red foam at the edges of her vision. Who fucking cares what the Web expects- the Hunt expects it, too, and that’s what matters. Basira knows. Basira has always understood.

Basira looks away when Daisy grabs the kitchen knife.

* * *

Daisy expected a relapse into the Hunt to feel good, but it just feels… Normal, in a way. Like this was just how it was supposed to be. She was even a little ashamed of it as she helped Basira scrub the floors, because it hadn’t been an actual _hunt_, it had been- she had lashed out against something that was hunting _her_, that’s all. Like a mouse biting a snake. Stood her ground, yes, and protected her people, but there was no joy in it. Just a rapidly diffusing anger.

“John’s good blood on him,” Basira mumbles without looking up. Daisy guesses she has just taken on the role of John’s nurse, now, and she remembers how her anger had been directed at him for a second. Strange. She feels cold toward him now. Not the sad warmth she had when she helped him walk out of the office, and now the attached jubilation of seeing him smoke, and very much not the seething, deep-set, betrayed kind of rage she felt when she blamed him for all their misfortunes at the table. She’s just… Neutral, she supposes. Normal.

Still, she wrings the washcloth and goes over to him. True enough; his left sleeve is stained deep red, and his shoes are dotted, too. The shoes are black so it won’t show when it dries but the jacket needs to be burned with Marguerite. She reaches out to pull the sleeve down and get the jacket off his shoulders. Then she frowns. It’s stuck.  
She pulls again. Frowns. Then she moves behind him and grabs it by the collar, intending to pull the whole thing down in one, swift motion, and- something lets go. Something rips. Blood starts oozing from John’s left thumb, and she only now notices that they were curled into fists at his chest. On his now removed jacket, a sliver of thumbnail hangs onto the fabric.

“… Uh, Basira?”  
“Mhm?”  
“I think John is cold.”

She comes over and feels his neck.

“No, he’s still warm.”  
“Yeah, but he was holding on to his jacket.”  
“He was- what?”

She shows her the thumbnail, and points to the bleeding rift where it was ripped off. They stare together.

John was smoking last night, and today he has moved his arms and clenched his fists. John. John did those things. Poor, dead, angelic John, who Daisy wanted to murder an hour ago. She reaches over to pull his arm up and get a look at the ripped nail, but for the first time since finding him in his office there is actual resistance in the joints.

“Is this good?” Basira asks, and Daisy is baffled to find her looking at her like some kind of expert.  
“Hell if I know. Yes? Maybe?” though she does have the uncomfortable feeling that he might be going into rigor mortis. She shakes her head. They clean up the scene.

Obviously they have to leave, but after strapping John down in his seatbelt and starting the car, neither Basira nor Daisy have an actual destination in mind. Though, that is good, right? It had felt so natural and obvious when they drove to the bookshop, so if nothing comes to mind now, then they are making their own choices.  
“Not the archives,” Daisy establishes just to get the conversation going.  
“Obviously. And not our apartments.”  
“No.”  
Daisy taps on the steering wheel, staring at John through her rear-view mirror.   
“We need to get to the source. We don’t know if John is getting better, and if he is, we don’t know what’s doing it. All we know is that the Web is involved in some way. We need to go to it before it gets to us.”  
Basira inhales like she’s been expecting this.  
“So… Hill top road.”  
“Hill top road.”

* * *

It feels like so long ago that they all went together to this house. Right after John was caught _feeding_, when they wondered if the Spider was making him do it, and they had marched in with flares and flashlights. Melanie had been there, then. Daisy’s heart twinges with the thought.  
She misses Melanie. Glad she got out, but… Still, it would be nice to meet up for drinks or something.

They get the torches from the car and support John between them, because he seems unwilling to walk as steadily as he used to. When they get him out they go back in for their guns. Only then does Daisy remember that she hasn’t reloaded, and hopes the single bullet in her chamber will come to good use, because she has no intention of stopping to reload it right now.  
The front door is unsurprisingly unlocked. Daisy has that tickling in her head again- the feeling of something slipping, like a dream after waking up. She doesn’t know as much as she wishes she knew about this place- _or about anything_\- but whatever is waiting, whatever has drawn them here or pushed them here or, or… Or trapped them here, she is going to face it.  
When the doorhandle clicks in her hand she makes eye contact with Basira and sees her eyes big and soft. She isn’t ready, either. Nothing to do about that. They enter the hallway.

This place looks exactly like it should look. It’s modern enough with the almost undetectable beige wallpaper and hardwood floors, and a white wooden border runs along the ceiling, sealing in the arching doorways into different rooms. There is a staircase going up to their left. Every corner, nook and cranny looks fuzzy, but spilling the light over them reveals (to no one’s surprise) masses of cobwebs. Big ones. Small ones. Long ones with loads of holes and tiny, perfectly round ones, so tight knit they look like fabric. Melanie’s voice saying _I’m sure this is a normal amount of cobwebs_ plays through Daisy’s mind, and she could laugh. She doesn’t.  
One thing is different, however, and when the torchlight hits it Daisy feels her stomach drop.

There is a door under the stairs.

“The basement,” Basira whispers, almost reverent.

The atmosphere is one of winter mornings, when the snow packs itself so tight around windows and doors that, for a couple of hours, it feels like silence has been made into a soft, cold, physical substance. So deep is this silence, so profound, that Daisy feels an echo of that archive-peace come back to her. The same feeling that made her quietly watch John’s door, knowing in her heart of hearts that he was not coming out for tea that day, or the day after, or the day after… And for a moment, it’s so simple to live like that. To just let the serenity of lost control wash over her. What was she supposed to do about it, anyhow? She was just _Daisy_. Everything she had ever done, for good or bad, had been decided by outside factors, by outside people. On her own she was nothing. Useless. She might as well- _click_.

Daisy immediately reaches for the lighter, and it’s there in her pocket. It’s not open. Still, she could swear she heard- _whirr_.

It’s been so long that she actually didn’t recognize the sound of the tape recorder, but she does now, and she jerks it out of her pocket like it’s going to burn her. The tape with John’s statement is inside, which means that if it’s running, it could overwrite- but no, _no,_ this isn’t right, because the recorder she is holding is not on.

“Daisy?” Basira hisses, torch pointed at the door. Daisy looks up and sees it open. The doorway is a gaping, black maw of nothing.   
“Not now,” Daisy hisses back, fumbling in her pockets with her one spare hand, “do you hear that? Basira, do you-“

John groans.   
Basira flings him from her like he’s toxic and when he lands on Daisy she can feel something hard hit her shoulder, around where John’s breast pocket is. She doesn’t need to fish it out; the soft whirring is much stronger when it’s so close to her face.  
There is a running tape recorder in John’s pocket. None of them brought it, and he did not have it before. This means something. This has to mean something.

“Daisy!”

“I- I can’t!” because John is shifting against her now, his hands grasping weakly at her coat, and he’s making low, painful noise right above her ear, are those words? She feels his fingers bury themselves at her waist, and then they climb, one finger above the other just like when she taught him to walk, up torso. He has many fingers. He has too many fingers, and he’s talking, the tape recorder-

A shot rings out and Daisy drops instinctively. She’s at the stairwell before she has time to think, and sees Basira scramble into a doorway for cover. John drops with a thud, although… He doesn’t sound as heavy as he should be.

That’s when Annabelle emerges.

She comes out of the darkness like it pains her to leave, one hand in front of the other on the floor. Her limbs are jittery and in the lack of light Daisy can swear she has too many, but when she crawls into the beam of Daisy’s dropped torch it’s clear that she’s just- just _human_, really, with all the right limbs for a human to have, and a shock of pitch black hair on her head, lowered towards the ground. Below her, by her splayed fingers, a small pool of black liquid is forming.   
Daisy’s head is buzzing with weight, but still all she can think about is John- John on the floor, John defenceless and limp and useless, with a tape recorder in his pocket that he didn’t have before. John, who is still groaning. Because he is a live. He has always been alive, and Daisy just _left him _there.  
When she hears that _click_ again she knows that it is not the lighter and not the recorder, because she watches Basira hopelessly pull the trigger on her gun. Click, it says. Click, click, click. _Stupid_.

Annabelle crawls all the way over to the torch, and every inch she gets closer to John makes him make more noise. He is still not standing up, though. Not defending himself. Of course he won’t, he can’t, and Daisy just left him there. She watches, hopeless, oblivious to her own gun in its holster, because now is not the time for more bullets. Now is the time to watch the web come down.   
When the time is right, Daisy gets up and walks towards them. Basira is more reluctant but still heeds the call. They are pulled on strings they cannot see towards the center of the hallway where Annabelle Cane, still dripping from the gunshot, cradles Jonathan Sims’ head in her lap, and he has finally stopped trying to speak. Now he is watching. Actually, properly watching, with eyes that can see things. Annabelle takes the recorder out of his pocket and lays it gently down on his chest to witness them.

“This is not a statement,” she croaks. Her voice is not as human as the rest of her.  
“This is a story about many people, in many places, experiencing many events. The web was spun long ago, but I think it fits that I begin… Here, in this house. Don’t you agree, detective?” and she looks up with dark eyes at both of them and neither of them at once. Her body is not as human as Daisy first thought; she has many, shining, glittering eyes. Basira makes a noise of confirmation. Daisy says yes.

“in July this year, my home was invaded. Agents of the Eye waving their invisible banners around this place, trying to knock down the webs and nests I had so carefully created. They were worried about their Archivist- a small, insignificant man by himself, but so full of the Watcher’s garbage that he did not have room to be much else- because he had started to _indulge_ himself. No one likes to think they make bad decisions. Everyone wants to blame a compulsion. But oh, Jonathan Sims was indeed manipulated, though not by me, and not in the way he thought he was.”

“You see, Jonathan Sims was in the company of his friends, as much as the man could have any friends. One of them was Melanie King. I know you know her, detective. She was full of Slaughter’s rot but she saw the Eye the same way I often do; as a cage. Out of all of them she was the most willing to deny the truth, and she went wildly from assumption to assumption, trying to explain away everything she saw in here. I found in her the need for escape, and I planted a seed.  
It is rare that I get to see my seeds grow so quickly, but Ms King was desperately watering it. All I needed to do was to make John doubt his instincts with a few loose ends, and before I knew it, he was digging into the files that his master did not want him to read. It was hard to hide it from the Eye, of course, but I left breadcrumbs in all the right places, until poor little John decided that the only _right thing _to do was to tell the others, including Melanie King. _Especially_ Melanie King.”

“I knew how it would affect him. He lit his cigarettes with my lighter while he was waiting for the ambulance. He was so afraid, then, of what the future would look like; he was afraid that Melanie had just been the first of many, and that soon he would be the only one left. Poor thing. I made the screams come back as he cleaned the floor of blood. Of course he recorded his experience. Of course he felt the hunger sate. _Of course_. He had many, many cigarettes that day. I did not need to push him into the decision. He would have made it no matter the cost.”

“In the next couple of weeks I just had to keep suspicion off him. People’s eyes slide off the places I don’t want them to see. He grew on his own fat. He fed on himself until there was nothing left for his cruel master to hang on to, so the Eye let him go, and finally I had the room inside his head I needed to spin my webs there. That is when I made him obvious again; so that you would take him away from the place and into _my _domain. You drove him directly to my agent and my agent made me proud. I heard from Marcus that you had arrived, and he told me all about the drinking and smoking and general debauchery you tried to get life back into John. All he needed was time, of course. The smoking helped his development but, really, my plan had been to keep you there until the eggs in his head hatched. Don’t look like that, Detective. They are metaphorical eggs.”

“But you couldn’t stay put. You realized you were in my net, but I had accounted for that and planned accordingly. What I did not expect you to do was see through my agent. Foolish of me, really, I should have known she was your type. Still… There are contingency plans for contingency plans, and I knew the Hunter in you would want to find me, once you awakened it with poor Ms Denner’s blood. I only wish she hadn’t given her statement before dying. That might slow him down. When you came here I admit, you almost made me sweat with the gun, but- switching the owners of objects is the easiest thing I do, and I could handle the one shot you had.”

“And so…”

Daisy has not moved an inch under the spell of Annabelle’s voice, but now she does, and finds her hand in her pocket, closed around the lighter. When she pulls it out and drops it, there is a long hand below to catch it. Annabelle smiles with all eight eyes.

“Thank you, detective. And thank _you,_ Detective. You have both played your parts admirably. As a token of thanks I will allow a question from each of you, before I ask you to never come here again.”

Basira shakes her head over and over again to think. She opens and closes her mouth.

“Think carefully.”  
“Why.. I mean, what-“ but Daisy interrupts to give her more time.

“What will happen to John?”

Annabelle smiles again, and strokes his hair gently.

“He will remain, and I will replace what he has lost. You don’t even need to worry about me changing him much, as I quite liked what he was before the Watcher shaped him. I expect him to start taking water tomorrow. With time and care he will eat, and he will sleep, and I will send him out and call him back until he is no longer a ruined canvas, just a blank one. In time his head will swell with my nests and he will reclaim the knowledge he used to have, and he will become quite useful. You might even meet him one day, if he wants to. If he… Remembers you. Consider him my own… Agnes. A nothing that becomes a destined something.”

Basira speaks up.

“What about us? What will happen to us?” and Annabelle’s smile turns to her.

“Oh, you are quite safe for now. You, Detective, have a role to play for the Watcher yet. I have many threads within the institute so I expect to see you again, but know that I do not hunt you. I mean you no harm. If you are caught up within my webs, then, well… That is just how it happens, although I can’t say I believe much in coincidences. And you, detective, with the Hunt still fresh on your hands? I suspect you will go back with your partner and continue your sombre fasting. If you take up the mantle of protection or waste away is completely up to you. Or… Or perhaps, perhaps you will find your own way out. Out of the Eye and out of the Hunt. I can assure you what John did will not work for you, but the world is vast, is it not? If you want _my _advice, I would say… Do the opposite of what your master wants. Try to be prey every once in a while. It might work.”

Neither of them exit the house on Hill Top Road, but both of them are standing outside it. When she enters the car Daisy checks her pockets for the keys, and sees they are already in the ignition. She still has the recorder with John’s statement, though not the one with Annabelle’s.

They drive silently to the Magnus Institute, London. They get out of the car. They go into the building. In the basement, by the coatracks, Daisy realizes it must have been snowing outside, because her jacket is covered in fluffy white silence. She brushes it off. She helps Basira take her own coat off.

When they enter the archives that they left in such good condition they find the drawers flung open and the desks ransacked and, in the middle, red and sweaty and crying, stands Martin Blackwood.


End file.
